The Waiting Room
by CakuRamen
Summary: A bomb explosion destroyed his house, and Arthur Kirkland wasn't sure if he was dead, alive, or something else entirely. Now featuring Prussia too; headcanon.
1. Chapter 1

A bomb explosion destroyed his house, and Arthur Kirkland wasn't sure if he was dead, alive, or something else entirely.

~v~

Look here, another oneshot! Random, midnight inspiration that fits with history and canon Hetalia. Please enjoy!

I disclaim, and own nothing.

* * *

Standing on the sidewalk of a London street, a solitary figure, dressed in a suit for the first time in too long, drank in the sight of his home. It was a house he hadn't seen since his government had abruptly called him away weeks before to fight in a war he had known was a long time coming. He'd left with a single suitcase and a mind filled with grim enthusiasm, and returned with the same suitcase and a bone-deep weariness.

He pushed open the small, wrought-iron gate at the front of his property, noting in an almost pleased manner the squeak that he had been meaning to fix for ages now, almost as long as he'd owned the house. Of course, his government was who really owned the house. Just another way to assert their control over him, he supposed, because he certainly wasn't wont for money, but there were all sorts of touches that were distinctly _his_, what made this house home.

The postal box he'd purchased, simple and gray with a little red flag. Flipped up at the moment, alerting him that yes, those wads of papers practically overflowing from within were for him, his mail. Delivered by someone new now, as the young man who'd performed the task before had enlisted.

The flowerbeds too were his, tended with care whenever he had free time. His English roses stood on either side of his front gate, now gnarled and untrimmed as the weeds that choked the dying remnants of his other flowers. Petunias and geraniums by the door, daffodils in the spring, and marigolds planted wherever he could find room. He sighed, knowing what a chore it would be to clear the beds and replant, but he looked forward to it anyway. Mundane and _normal_, it would be.

He'd collected weeks' worth of newspapers from his front stoop, and wondered why he hadn't remembered to tell the delivery man that he'd be gone. From beneath the papers, he unearthed his doormat, tan with a large cursive _K_ in the middle, again his own purchase. He remembered debating for the longest time whether to get a _K _or an _E, _and in the end choosing the former because the _K _looked more tasteful.

Tucking his mail under one arm and choosing to leave the newspapers alone for now, save the most recent, he pulled his key out of his pocket and let himself in. He wiped his feet almost automatically, set his suitcase by the door and his mail on a low table, and headed upstairs.

His bedroom was a welcome sight, just as he had left it months before. The letter from his government, summoning him to war, sat on his desk where he placed it after reading. Beside it was his framed photo of Alfred, grinning like the child he still was, with an arm thrown around a sweetly smiling Matthew. He hadn't seen either of them in a while, though some of their troops were in London.

Speaking (or was he thinking? he no longer really knew) of London, his bedroom had a rather nice view of the city. It was an unusually clear evening, but clouds were gathering off to the east, promising a storm for the mainland. Maybe rain would postpone the fighting. He dearly hoped so, though he knew it was in vain.

He rested his palms on the windowsill, leaning forward and pressing his forehead to the glass. It was unusually quiet, with few cars puttering down the streets and even fewer people. He tried to remember how it had been just a few years before, before this whole mess started. War always made him nostalgic, and heartsick for normalcy. The wounds didn't help in the slightest.

Burns from bombings of his land, bullet furrows from the battles his people had fought, and deep slices crisscrossing his skin as more died every day. All bandaged at the moment, the white cloth peeking out from beneath his collar and sleeves.

Pulling himself away from thoughts that would surely grow morbid, he contemplated going downstairs for tea, maybe finding himself a good novel to read in his favorite armchair. Maybe then he could forget, just for a little while, the feeling of drowning in somewhere impossible to swim.

He heard the wailing siren, breaking the suffocating wartime hush with a twistingly welcome distraction.

The last thing he heard was a resonating boom, one that shook the building to its very foundations and deafened his ears. In utter silence, his crumbling world seemed unreal, as though he was watching a newsreel at the cinema, colored to bring out every last excruciating detail.

His heart was already burning, so his fading consciousness found it fitting that the last thing he should see was a wall of flame, blindingly orange and painfully hot, before he slipped into blackness.

_V~-~-~V_

When he woke, he was already standing. But this didn't seem very odd; in fact, it was almost expected, and he made no more than a passing note of it.

He also realized that he was no longer in pain. Last he remembered, there had been a burning sensation in his chest, beneath all the accumulated flesh wounds. But even this seemed fuzzy, like it had been someone else's pain rather than his own, despite the fact he felt clear-headed for the first time in months.

Looking around, he took in his surroundings for the first time since his arrival in… wherever it was he had arrived. It appeared to be some sort of office, with a large wooden desk and cushioned chair sitting before him, both empty. Plain gray filing cabinets lined the walls, save for a single space, where a window was instead. But looking closer, he realized the window beheld nothing but the soft white light that pervaded the entirety of the strange office. Spinning in place, he also realized that the office had no doors, no way out save for the blank window.

"Nice to see you again, Mr. Kirkland."

His head snapped around, searching for the source of the voice. His eyes alighted on a person, a young man, sitting in the previously empty desk chair. He had black hair, slightly tousled but parted to one side, and wore square spectacles perched on the tip of his nose and a neatly pressed black suit. Behind him was a door where he was positive there hadn't been before, but suddenly the appearance of an exit didn't seem so very important after all.

"Who are you?" he asked, not because he truly wanted to know, but because the question demanded asking. The man's calm smile didn't waver.

"We've met before, Mr. Kirkland. You wouldn't remember, of course. This place _does_ have a way of doing that."

"We've met…?" he asked, confused now. "When? And where exactly _is_ 'this place'?" He paused. "If you don't mind my asking." For some reason, offending this man didn't seem like a good idea, no matter how imperturbable he appeared.

"Oh, I don't mind at all," the man said. "It's a rather popular question, really. But I've answered it so many times now, I'd almost rather you guess."

Arthur glanced around again, absorbing the sight of the filing cabinets, the window to nothing, and the abruptly present door with a curious expression. Suddenly recalling his Protestant (or was it Catholic? he'd never really decided for sure) upbringing, he asked hesitantly, "Is this… Heaven?"

The man's smile widened just a fraction. "That would depend."

"On what?"

"On what you believe, of course."

"… So this is Heaven… or is it Hell?" It looked a little too plain to be Hell, in his opinion. No roaring infernos like the one he'd left behind, in order to get to wherever it is he was. Then again, it didn't look much like Heaven either.

"If you believed that this was the inside of your downstairs broom cupboard, it would be," the man said, as open-ended a non-answer as before.

"Would that make you God?" he asked, curious now as to what God was doing inside an office… if that's what he was. The man laughed.

"You ask that every time, you know. But no, I am not God."

Not God. So this man was either human, or a figment of his imagination, but the office seemed too real to be all in his head. Then again, he saw fairies no one else seemed to notice, so how unbelievable was it really that he'd just invented it all?

"Every time," he repeated slowly, moving away from his previous train of thought, because that lead to questions of his sanity he didn't feel like asking. "You said that before. How many times have I been here?"

"Oh, a great many. Not as many as your friend Mr. Wang, or Mr. Bonnefoy, but a great many nonetheless."

"You know _France?_" he exclaimed, incredulous. "And he's not my friend!"

"It is my job to know everybody, Mr. Kirkland," the man replied, his eyes twinkling from behind his glasses. "I've even met your friend Mr. Jones before. Actually, he's been here more frequently than most, considering his age."

"More frequently?" Arthur's stomach dropped, even as he told himself that there was no need to be concerned, Alfred was perfectly fine. He would have been told if something had happened to his former colony.

"You can look at his file, if you like," the man said, gesturing towards the wall to his right. Moving for the first time since he'd found himself in this place, he stepped closer to the filing cabinets, studying their faces, and was startled to see that all had small, carefully written labels. _Carriedo, Antonio Fernandez _the one closest to him read. _Spain?_

Moving along the wall, he looked for the file that would tell him about America, somehow verify the man's claim that he'd met him before. Finally, _Jones, Alfred Franklin_, appeared. He paused, having been unaware that Alfred's middle initial stood for Franklin. The git had always told him it was, "_F for Freedom, Artie!_"

Pulling the silver handle, he yanked the drawer open, revealing the dozens of manila folders within. Each, he noticed, was marked on the tab with a year. He grabbed one at random, pulling it free of the drawer with a swift jerk of his arm, letting the other folders shift together to fill the space.

_1933_, the folder said. Not that long ago, then. Flipping it open, he read the date, printed at the top of the first page of documents, _February 15__th__._ Below, written in meticulously neat handwriting, was a brief description of the circumstances surrounding the date.

_Location: Bayfront Park, Miami, Florida, United States of America_

_Cause of visit: Subject was severely injured after being shot in the upper right of the abdomen with a .32 caliber pistol. Complications involve an infection of the wound, a cracked rib, and a punctured lung._

Arthur swallowed, the file shaking slightly in his hands. He didn't remember that. What had Alfred been doing that had gotten him shot? He continued reading, wondering if all of the "incidents" were as impersonally recorded as this. He might be sick if they were, if each of the folders filling these filing cabinets blandly described an event they considered akin to unthinkable, the fatal injury of a Nation, but apparently had happened to every one of them on multiple occasions.

_Incident description: Subject reports that he was listening to a speech delivered by President-elect F. D. Roosevelt of the United States of America when an unknown person fired five shots in total. Subject believes that this was an attempt on the life of Roosevelt.* In trying to shield a person beside him, the subject was wounded by one of the errant shots._

_*Note: subject seems to harbor a great respect for the aforementioned Roosevelt._

_Possible related reasons for death: the United States of America is currently suffering from an economic depression of unusually large magnitude. Monitor subject closely in the future for possible additional complications._

He certainly didn't remember that. He did remember Alfred mentioning to him that there had been an assassination attempt on one of his most beloved Presidents, but he had been a bit busy at the time with his own affairs and ailing country, and hadn't really paid attention. He looked up at the man, who was waiting patiently for him to finish reading.

"Are they all…" he gestured vaguely at the file in his hands, "like this?"

"Most are, yes. The files involving incidents when a person such as you was young are a bit vaguer, I'm afraid, due to the inability of a child to accurately describe events."

"How many files do I have?"

The man's smile was still there. "Why don't you look for yourself?"

He placed Alfred's folder back and shut the drawer. Not far away, he spotted a cabinet labeled _Kirkland, Arthur_, but couldn't bring himself to open it.

"When did I first come here?" he asked instead, mind flitting back to the man's earlier comment about children.

"I believe the first time was in your year 388. You were so small then, and very confused. I distinctly remember you sobbing in that corner for a good several minutes, and refusing to speak to me. That file entry was unsatisfactorily uninformative." The man frowned ever so slightly, seeming faintly irritated by the whole matter.

"I… what?"

The man nodded sagely, brushing aside the muddled thought as easily as he brushed dust from his desktop. If there was any dust in this place. Arthur certainly had yet to see any, and it was usually the first one of his pet peeves to bother him.

"The second time was in 496. You weren't much better then, but you spoke. You were wondering where your mother was, I believe."

"My… my mother?" He barely remembered her, as distant in his past as she was. But he remembered her kindness, and the cloying smell of various herbs and plants that always hung about her.

"A charming woman. She was so polite when she came through."

"When she… came through?" He prided himself on his eloquence, but it seemed to have abandoned him, leaving him with naught but the vestiges of coherent thought. It seemed he couldn't do much more than parrot the man behind the desk, something he would mentally chastise himself for when he took the time to consider the strange encounter.

"You did say that this was Heaven," the man said. His smile returned to its place. While it had been mildly comforting at first, it was now edging towards disturbing.

"If this really is Heaven, then, and not my broom cupboard, does that mean I'm dead?" Being dead, oddly enough, didn't concern him very much. When he realized that, he took a moment to wonder if he _should_ be more concerned, and found that he didn't really feel dead enough to warrant that. This lead to his wondering when, exactly, he would feel dead enough, but he was pulled from his train of thought as the man spoke again.

"Yes and no," he said. "You were certainly killed when that bomb was dropped twenty meters from your house, but you aren't dead."

He tried to grasp the man's meaning, but found himself floundering in the vagaries of his speech instead, the answer evading his grasp. "Please… explain."

The man leaned back in his chair with the air of one about to deliver a speech he'd recited countless times before, on a topic he knew innately. "You, as a physical manifestation of the consciousness of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the English people, cannot truly die until your land and people no longer consider themselves part of you."

This made sense, at least. That's what they'd always expected, or at least what he'd always personally hypothesized, because death wasn't a topic spoken of lightly among Nations. But it was obvious that they survived wounds that would be fatal to a normal human, and drew the greatest pain in injuries not physically inflicted upon them, rather from those developed with little warning from an attack on their land.

The man, watching the comprehension dawning in his eyes, continued. "However, during times of war or other extreme stress, you are unusually vulnerable, made ever more so from wounds you accumulate. And there are some situations that, no matter how invincible your body might be, you simply cannot survive."

"Like your house burning to the ground in a bomb explosion," he supplied, recalling the encroaching wall of flame with a light shudder, "or being shot by some raving lunatic and suffering complications."

"Precisely," the man replied cheerfully, clearly happy that he understood.

"So, am I dead for good? You did say that even my body couldn't survive."

"No, you are not. Didn't I just explain that you've been here before?"

"…Oh. Erm, right. Sorry."

"No need to apologize," the man said, his patience seemingly unending. "This place does tend to muddle the brain, after all. No, you will be sent back to your world, just as you were before the explosion." The man paused, breaking from his set speech to say, "Think of this as a sort of… waiting room, for people like yourself. Neither here nor there, in between your world and the next."

"So there is a next world."

"As I said earlier, there is if you believe there is. Even I do not know what you will find when you _truly_ die."

Arthur sighed. This was all terribly confusing, and far too much for him to consider clearly when he hadn't had a decent cup of tea in months.

The man suddenly stood, deftly snapping open a watch pulled from his breast coat pocket. "It would seem our time here is up," he said, closing the watch again and tucking it away.

"Am I going back to London?"

"Who's to say you aren't in London now?" the man asked, seemingly still determined to speak in riddles.

"Fine then," Arthur snapped. "Will I be returning to wherever I was, before I came to this… waiting room?"

"Indeed you will," the man smiled. "And do try to stay out of further trouble for a bit longer this time. Though I do expect to see Mr. Honda very soon... I would tell you to warn him, but you won't remember a thing. Good day, Mr. Kirkland."

Arthur tried to reply, but found he couldn't speak, and merely watched as the enigmatic young man gave him one last cheerful wave, before his vision grew hazy and his consciousness slipped away.

_V~-~-~V_

Stark white and clean. His first thought upon opening his eyes. He blinked, trying to clear away the residual fuzziness about the edges, when his ears finally caught up.

"—tie! Artie!"

He turned his head toward the sound, and immediately regretted the action, hissing in pain and clenching his eyes shut. When he opened them again, a familiar face appeared above him.

"Dude, Artie, you're awake!"

"I'm aware of that, you idiot," he bit back, finally finding his voice. Alfred merely laughed, throwing back his blond head and grinning ear to ear.

"Your house blew up, man! You remember that? You got a little toasty is all, but the doc says it's a miracle you aren't dead!"

Of course he remembered that. He remembered those flames coming after him, bright orange and unbearably hot, just as well as he remembered square spectacles and a patient smile and a room full of filing cabinets—

He paused. Where had that come from? He tried to grasp the thought, but the image slipped away, and he couldn't for the life of him remember what it was he was trying to catch.

"—hero, and dude, Artie, are you even listening?"

"What?"

Alfred shook his head. "I was just explaining how that bastard Germany decided to bomb your house, but lucky I was here to save you from the wreckage, like the hero I am." He peered closer, blue eyes scrutinizing Arthur's face. "You okay, Artie?"

"Of course, I'm not, you git! You're telling me my home just burned down and my capital city was bombed!"

Alfred held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Chill, dude, I was just asking." He didn't say anything more, and a thick silence settled between them, neither sure how to proceed, and Arthur really more concerned with assessing his personal injuries than dealing with the all-too-cheery American.

"Have you—have you been shot before?" Arthur asked at last, not sure where the thought was coming from.

Alfred laughed, somewhat uneasily. "Sure, loads of times. Why're you asking?"

Arthur tried to remember why he was asking. Something about a manila folder and a President came to mind, but he brushed those thoughts aside, deeming them irrelevant, and wondering why they had come to mind at all. "No reason."

Alfred grinned again, his cheer back in place, and stood. He grabbed his jacket, a brown one with a fur collar he'd acquired fairly recently, and threw it on over his military uniform. "I gotta run, Artie. Things to do, people to save! Also, I'm really hungry, and this hospital food is crap. And I needed to see my generals, something to do with Japan…"

Japan. That was familiar too, in the same strange way. Arthur felt a distinct sense of foreboding wash across him at the thought of his fellow island nation and current enemy. But before he could voice this, Alfred waved and was gone, the door to Arthur's room slamming shut behind him.

Arthur sighed. Surely, the doctor would be in soon to check on him, and then his government would remove him from the hospital, erasing any record of his presence along the way.

It had all happened before, and somehow Arthur knew it would happen countless times again.

In a place neither here nor there, in an office full of filing cabinets and a single empty window, a black-haired man finished penning his latest report. _1941_ stood out in bold letters at the top of the folder that he slid into its place in the silver drawer, and the man smiled faintly at his latest encounter with the United Kingdom.

He'd certainly grown up in the past few years. And in spite of the fact that it was his job to file the records every time a Nation died, to greet and console and explain and watch them forget again as they went to war, never hearing the lesson he tried to teach, the man allowed himself to hope that he wouldn't have to see Mr. Kirkland again for a good long while.

V/~-~-~\V

* * *

I hope that made at least a bit of sense. Just my thoughts on what happens to a Nation suffering fatal physical wounds, even when they can't die.

There were also some mentions of my favorite thing, known as history! So, a brief explanation...  
In 388 AD, Maximus (the Emperor of Britain, as proclaimed by the Romans), was killed by Theodosius (the eastern Emperor) in a battle which resulted in the loss of many of the troops Britain needed for its defense.  
In 496, the Britons, under command of the "war leader" Arthur, defeat the Saxons at the Siege of Mount Badon.  
On February 15th, 1933, an Italian immigrant named Guiseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate President Franklin Delano Roosevelt at Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida, where he was giving an impromptu speech from the back of an open car. Zangara was suffering from complications of an appendectomy (which is thought to have caused some mental delusions) and was only five feet tall, so had to stand on a wobbly chair to see the President. After firing the first shot (with a .32 caliber pistol he bought at a pawn shop), he was grabbed by nearby people and fired four more shots wildly into the crowd. The then-mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, was standing next to Roosevelt and was shot instead of the President, and died 19 days later. Cermak allegedly told Roosevelt, en route to the hospital, "I'm glad it was me instead of you."  
Zangara initially pleaded guilty to four counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to 80 years in prison. Upon Cermak's death, he pleaded guilty to the final charge and was sentenced to death on the electric chair. Zangara's sentence also required prison officials to expand their waiting area, which then became known instead of the "death cell" as "Death Row."  
The bombing of London mentioned is the London Blitz, which was a series of attacks by the Germans that lasted from 1940-1941. In the end, the Germans deemed it a strategic failure and stopped.

So that's it. If you've any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to drop a review! Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

So this oneshot turned into multiple parts a while ago, but I recently rediscovered the first half of this chapter and decided to finish it. One of the reviewers mentioned something about different Nations in the "waiting room," so here we have it.

The rating's up for more language. I hope you enjoy!

* * *

Standing alone in his kitchen, Gilbert skillfully pretended that the knocking in the background was only the neighbor's dog, and willed it to go away.

Of course, it didn't. Growling under his breath, he yanked open the icebox and pulled out a beer, popping the cap with a practiced motion and drinking it straight from the bottle, the glass cold on his lips. The knocking persisted, but suddenly it wasn't as relevant.

_I wonder if I can get Lud to come over and cook..._

There. That was getting easier. Thinking about his little brother had been hard at first, after all that had happened. He kept half-expecting Ludwig to storm in whenever he played his music too loudly, or raided the kitchen, or passed out on the sofa after too many drinks, but he never did.

Because their bosses had separated them after the war, that last war, great and terrible at the same time. Gilbert had felt so out of place at first, with a gun in his hand instead of a sword, and tanks marching through his streets in the place of cavalry. But eventually it had turned familiar, becoming just like the many, many wars he'd fought before. The new generals, new weapons, and new wounds were insignificant when territory was gained and lost and millions died, just like before.

Only it wasn't the same at all, because unlike before, he hadn't won. His country, his beloved people of Prussia, hadn't fought with the promise of victory and eternal glory before them, only a madman's empty half-truths that quickly became desperate lies.

Of course, he'd believed them at first. Everyone had, because believing meant life would get better and all those aches and pains he'd felt that came with words like economic crisis and demilitarization, unemployment and inflation, Treaty of Versailles and Allied Powers would all disappear.

But most importantly, he'd failed his old man, his mentor, the one who made him strong in the first place. It hadn't been very long ago in the lifetime of a Nation, but it seemed like an eternity, so far removed was that glorious heaven from the painful reality in which he now lived.

At least he didn't have much longer. The others, his once-friends and current treaty-pacified enemies, had said as much. Ivan and Yao and Alfred and Arthur and Francis.

He'd expected Ivan's betrayal from the beginning, but Ludwig hadn't listened, and their boss hadn't listened, making an alliance anyway. It quickly fell apart when the others arrived, winning battles and promising better than Ludwig ever could. In that regard, his personal feelings toward the intimidating Russian hadn't changed. If anything, they'd been made even uglier, thanks to Stalingrad.

Yao he hadn't known very well, not as well as the others. But he and Ludwig had sent ships over, trying to trade, many years ago. Yao hadn't exactly been hospitable at the time, but he was just protecting his own interests, something Gilbert could relate to. He'd seemed like an all-right sort of guy (if a bit conceited), and Gilbert hadn't really expected much of him.

Alfred was still young in his mind, still the boy he'd helped through his revolution and subsequent independence from England, back when Fritz was still alive. Since then, he'd always been that self-proclaimed hero, emerging from his personal crises stronger than ever to "save the world" yet again. Gilbert wondered what the war would have been like if Alfred hadn't sided against him (not that he'd expected anything else); maybe they would have stood more of a chance.

Arthur had been on his side before, back when he was fighting France, but that alliance had quickly ended with bitter feelings on his part once France was defeated. It was much to his own shock that Arthur had sided with Francis in this war, but they did have a common enemy that made it all the easier. Still, they'd actually come close to getting along, which astonished him to no end.

Speaking of Francis, he was still knocking. Ever since their peace treaty, he'd been coming over, trying to get in to talk to Gilbert, but his betrayal had hurt. Gilbert knew he was being childish, because Francis had always, always been his best friend, along with Antonio. Even he, broke as he was, had come over once, asking Gilbert to please let Francis in, because he felt so bad and just wanted to apologize. Gilbert had told him that as long as he still had bandages wrapped around his head from France's attacks, that was not happening.

It didn't matter that Francis was trying to just be Francis and only Francis, no greater France involved, because his muscles were still sore as hell, he still had bandages around most of his body, and he was short on both food and beer. It also didn't matter that most of the time, Gilbert wondered if he should be the one begging forgiveness.

But his country, his beautiful Prussia, was dissolved, just last week at a conference full of pompous military officials and diplomats. He'd seen everyone there, and been reminded of all the things that still haunted his nightmares, things he'd been trying not to remember.

Ludwig had been in worse shape than he, so he hadn't bothered asking him to come over, because the last thing he probably wanted to see was his idiot older brother, who hadn't protected him properly, who had let this happen to him.

So for now, Gilbert stood alone, in his kitchen with a beer in his hand, thinking about his dissolution and waiting for something to happen, just like it had happened to the great Roman empire and a little blond boy Ludwig never stopped reminding him of.

It was almost expected, a fulfillment of some dark premonition, when the insistent knocking faded into the distance, replaced by a piercing headache and a welcome blackness, encroaching on his vision until the bright light of his kitchen was gone, as shattered as the beer bottle that had slipped from his hand onto the cold, tiled floor.

_V~-~-~V_

He woke, which was something he hadn't expected. If death was that consuming blackness, why was the world suddenly bright again?

It also was a strange world, just an office even tinier, cleaner, and more boring than Ludwig's (something which impressed Gilbert in and of itself). The walls were bare and white, covered with dozens of identical filing cabinets, and the only furniture was a large desk and chair. He looked around for a way out, finding himself already standing, and found no doors.

He sighed. "Anyone here?" he called, not really expecting an answer, and there wasn't one. He glanced at the chair. It seemed forbidden, all black leather and official-looking, but if no one was here, who was to tell him no?

Glancing around again, he thought aloud, "If I'm going to have to wait in this stupid place, the wait might as well be comfortable." Again, there was no reply. Making his way behind the desk, he plopped down in the chair, which turned out to be very comfortable indeed. He hadn't been comfortable in a long while. Humming in satisfaction, he leaned back and propped his feet up on the desk.

"Please remove your shoes from my furniture, Mr. Bielschmidt."

Gilbert jumped, yanking his feet off the desk in pure surprise. Spinning, he came face-to-face with a young man, about his height, wearing a stiff black suit and simple tie that Ludwig would have approved of.

"_Scheisse_, man, you startled me!" he swore. The young man merely smiled, his dark eyes peering out from beneath black bangs as he casually pushed his glasses up his nose.

"My apologies, Mr. Bielschmidt, but I do like to keep my things clean," he replied, emphasizing the _my_. He gestured to the opposite side of the desk. "If you would?"

Gilbert stood his ground, narrowing crimson eyes and glaring in a way he knew intimidated people. "Why? And who are you, anyway?"

Unperturbed, the man merely continued to smile. "The question, I believe, is who _you_ are, Mr. Bielschmidt."

"I'm the Kingdom of Prussia," he retorted, "and that _wasn't_ the question at all!"

"Ah," the man said, sitting now, though Gilbert couldn't remember seeing him move. "I thought we'd hit that little snag."

"What snag?" Gilbert all but yelled, his annoyance with this man reaching new heights.

"You see, the Kingdom of Prussia, or Königreich Preußen, was dissolved on February 25th. It is no longer in existence, and as the personification of the land and people of Prussia, neither are you."

Gilbert's stomach dropped, and he swore again under his breath. "So I'm dead," he said dryly. "Fucking fantastic. What happens now? Angels or fiery agony and all that shit?"

The man almost laughed. Or at least, Gilbert thought he almost did, but it was hard to be sure when he had a face as unreadable as a brick wall.

"I'm afraid I don't know," he said, still smiling. "I have never been to the next world. It's my job to reside here, in the waiting room, between your world and what comes after."

"So whaddaya do, just say hi, nice to meet you, now have fun being dead? Pretty cushy job."

The man shook his head. "Not always. As I said, this is an in-between place. You've been here before, as have all of your friends. You simply don't remember."

Gilbert found that not quite as hard to believe as he thought he would. After all, he'd suffered some pretty serious injuries before, only to wake up after the fact with either someone hovering over him or a battlefield of corpses, not remembering how it had happened.

He shuddered. Battlefields of corpses were not what he wanted to be thinking about.

"So I've died before without being dead?" he asked, distracting himself as much as continuing his line of questioning.

"More or less," was the reply. "It's all in your file, if you want to look." He waved at the wall to his left, and Gilbert followed the sweeping gesture, filled with a sort of morbid curiosity. Stepping closer, he realized that there was a window on the wall too, in a gap between the filing cabinets. Peering out, he came to the conclusion that there was nothing outside (if it could even be considered "outside"), just a white light that probably should have hurt his eyes but didn't.

Pulling his gaze away, he examined the cabinets instead. They all had little names on them, written by hand. _Edelstein, Roderich _the nearest one read. The urge to open the pompous Austrian's folder was powerful, but Ludwig's voice suddenly spoke in his head, reminding him of the virtues of privacy and why he should respect them. Gilbert growled a mental retort and moved on.

His own drawer wasn't far, but as he opened it he found himself wondering what the point was of reading those pages (all crisp and white, seemingly having escaped age, tucked neatly between the edges of manila folders). He'd died in battle more times than he could keep track of, especially back when he was an idealistic young Teutonic Knight.

"Hell, I know everything in here anyway," he scoffed with bravado he couldn't feel, slamming the filing drawer shut with a loud metallic bang that diffused all too quickly in the stark room.

"So you do," the man agreed, and his smile was getting creepy. "Then you will know that it was internal bleeding left unchecked and a potentially fatal head injury coupled with copious quantities of alcohol overloading your system that caused your recent unfortunate demise."

Gilbert's brow furrowed. If the man didn't have the impassivity of a small mossy boulder, Gilbert might've interpreted his words as sarcasm. "I thought we couldn't die from things like that so easily. I was healing like normal!"

"Normally," the man said, agreeing again with a nod. "But when your Nation status is in question, it's not so simple anymore."

_Oh._ There was a few breaths' pause before Gilbert spoke again.

"So I'm dead for real after all. Way to screw with me, can I go now? And your face is creepy as hell."

"I would let you go on, but are you certain you want to?"

_Yes_, he wanted to say. Yes he was, because that was the only way he could get any peace, because here his body didn't hurt and he couldn't be made to feel guilty about things that weren't entirely his fault.

Because if he went on, maybe his old man would be waiting.

He opened his mouth, but snapped it shut just as abruptly. Because unbidden, there was Ludwig, the stiff little amnesiac kid he'd found in a field a century and then some back. The kid who'd looked up to him as a big brother and still did, despite everything he'd screwed up.

Antonio, and even Francis, friends he'd had for forever despite how unlikely such a friendship would be between their respective countries, both paled in comparison to his stupid little brother.

What would Ludwig do without an older sibling to guide him?

_He's strong enough_, a nagging voice replied, _he can handle his own._ _Didn't you see how close he came to destroying Europe?_

_Not his fault_, another voice replied. _Ludwig wouldn't hurt anything alone if you hadn't been there to encourage him._

But left unspoken was the fact that his little brother would be saddled with the burden of a broken Europe all alone, and would probably still be repenting decades from now, if not as a Nation, then as a person, because that's just the sort of thing he would do.

And surely, if he was even being given a choice, the world still had some need of the awesomeness that is (_was_) Prussia.

In the end, facing the calm black eyes of the waiting room attendant in his pressed black suit, Gilbert wondered if it was really such a hard decision at all.

_V~-~-~V_

He opened his eyes just a fraction, peering through eyelashes cracked just wide enough to see black-and-white tile in front of his face. Shiny, light-reflecting tiles and glinting broken glass that made everything much too bright and his headache worse, so he closed his eyes again.

"Gil, Gil... do you think he just blinked?"

"Gilbert? _Prusse_, are you there _mon ami_?"

Suddenly something slapped his cheek, leaving a stinging sensation and exacerbating the headache he'd only just noticed. The ground was hard beneath his back, but solidity surely meant something...?

"Don't hit him, you idiot! Can't you see he's injured?!"

"Hehe... sorry Gil, _mi amigo_, you know I didn't mean that. But if you are awake, blink, _por favor_?"

That was Antonio, but it couldn't be, because Antonio wasn't dead. But to the best of Gilbert's knowledge, neither was he.

_Why did I think I was dead?_

He cracked his eyes open, squinting as the light alerted him again to the pounding sensation in his forehead. Above him he could see the fuzzy outlines of his two best friends, and wasn't it a relief to see them at all, except Francis was not supposed to be there, hovering in concern. He wasn't supposed to be on speaking terms with the guy.

"What... Antonio?"

"_Si_, and Francis too! Are you okay, Gilbert?"

"What...?" he repeated, still not feeling up to coherence yet.

"I was knocking for so long that I broke down your door instead." Francis spoke this time, sounding vaguely apologetic but mostly worried. "I understand that you did not wish to see me, but... I found you unconscious and called Antonio."

Their faces had resolved themselves into something clearer, and Gilbert hauled himself into a sitting position, leaning against a leg of his kitchen table and praying he didn't open any wounds along the way.

"S'fine... but what happened to the filing cabinets?"

The pair exchanged glances, and it was Antonio who spoke, albeit uncertainly. "You have no filing cabinets, Gil. You, er... sent all your papers away to... to Ludwig, last week."

"Still doesn't explain why I'm not..." He paused. There had been a choice, something deep and intrinsically important, but he couldn't for the life of him recall his decision.

"...Never mind."

"Are you sure?" Francis asked, and he was still too concerned for Gilbert's liking.

"Of course I'm sure. _Scheisse_, man, you'd think I'd never gotten hit in the head before." He stood, ignoring the agony in his muscles as he tried to pass off the way he leaned heavily on the table for casual behavior.

Still, Francis pressed on. "Are you... Do you need anything? Food, beer?" He glanced at the broken glass on the floor a bit warily, but asked anyway.

Gilbert's stomach flip-flopped at the mention of alcohol. "No, no beer. But my cupboards are empty… you can start by fixing that."

"Start?" Francis repeated, and his voice was agonizingly hopeful. Gilbert just gave him a lopsided half-grin.

_Was there really ever a point to not forgiving?_

"That's what I said, moron. And you'd better start fast, you've got a lot of ground to cover." Except it wasn't really a lot at all, because Francis and Antonio were both smiling, and land or no land, he couldn't help but feel that the tenuous grip he'd had on life had somehow gotten just a little stronger.

V/~-~-~\V

* * *

So that's that. Depending on what inspiration strikes, there may be more. Eventually. It's a dandy little headcanon expansion, if I do say so myself.

As always, any questions or comments are appreciated, so if you have the time, please don't hesitate to review! Thanks for reading!


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